


love wastes

by sauer (Showert_ime)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Friendship/Love, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-War, Serious Injuries, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-10
Updated: 2017-10-10
Packaged: 2019-01-15 11:59:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12320658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Showert_ime/pseuds/sauer
Summary: Tao obviously shouldn’t have trusted them, but gullibility is, and was always one of his defining personality traits.(In which Jongin disappears, and Tao wants to find him back.)





	love wastes

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i'm not really supposed to be writing, but here i am.  
> please be aware that there is gore, descriptions of serious injuries 
> 
> and obviously, zombies, but not too many
> 
> it was written with milky chance's [unknown song ft. paulina eisenberg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WytEAFv_ig) as a background

The Wastes are called so for a reason. They are barren stretches of irate, dry land, save for the few zones buried under humongous piles of debris and toxic spills.

Tao shivers and pulls his tattered scarf higher up on his nose. He doesn’t know if coming here alone was a good idea, but it presented itself as his only way of ever retrieving Jongin.

The younger has been gone for well over a week already. Tao’s sole incentive to wait had been the other villagers’ words; they had, on the very first night of his friend’s disappearance, promised to send a search party should Jongin not come back after the three-day mark.

After all, maybe he’d just found something interesting; maybe he’d decided to stay longer. Maybe he had a good reason not to make his way back to the village right away.

Tao obviously shouldn’t have trusted them, but gullibility is, and was always one of his defining personality traits.  

He is one of those who cling to hope like a tick would to a toddler’s scalp, and that enough speaks of his lack of ability to differentiate a lie from a truth.

If he so much as begin to believe that someone is well-intentioned, methodic doubt technic he’s learned along the way becomes evasive, as difficult to get a grasp of as smoke.

More often than not, it’s a flaw, not a quality, but it has partly also brought him where he is today; alive. He’s well aware of the double-face quality of this characteristic of his.

The air here is dry, and with it comes the promise of clogged, contaminated airways due to the poison sand that dances with each gust of wind.

The sunrays are merciless, burning Tao’s exposed hands to the core of their skin layers. As he gazes at the red stretch before him, he’s grateful for the dirty goggles that shield his eyes.

His throat is already raw from the chemicals he has been inhaling for the past hour or so. He reaches for the small flasks at his leather belt, and drags a sip from it, his parched mouth welcoming the vital fluid with a contained greed.

He needs to be careful; it would be utterly stupid of him to drain his resources on the first day. He doesn’t know for how long he will have to be here, but returning to the camp without Jongin isn’t an option.

He’s packed tools, dried meat and a makeshift crossbow alongside his usual, dull-edged dagger, just in case. After all, there were rumours carried from ear to ear about what could be found in the Wastes, beside the toxic air and the relics of pre-war years. 

Apparently, the undead had finally taken over the nearby territories, but it goes without saying that this is, before all else, an assumption.

No one, back at the camp where Tao lives, has seen an undead in years.

From where he is standing, though, he cannot observe much. His eyebrows furrow as he makes his way to the nearest, tallest mountain of manmade metal rests.

With a careful hand, he reaches out. A spring and a few other pieces come crashing down right at his feet, but otherwise, it almost seems stable.

His hesitation is short-lived. “It’s not like I can see anything, anyway.”

Talking to himself momentarily boosts his assurance; he might as well try his luck if he wants a better chance at understanding his surroundings. Maybe, just maybe, he will even find a clue that Jongin was there; for now, nothing has come upon his way to signal that the younger might’ve been close.

He is relying, as all too often, on the assumption that Jongin was supposed to come here to begin with.

His limbs are wobbly as he starts ascending the heap of trash. Some supporting points are nothing but sharp, achingly hot against the calloussed palm of his hands, and he regrets losing his gloves to a stupid bet back at the village.

It isn’t easy; it takes him several minutes too long to reach the highest portion of the pile, but when he does, he is sweating profusely. His shirt sticks to his back and he has to hold back a frustrated cry at being unable to do something about the sensation of wet fabric against him.

Instead, he focuses on the sight before him. For an instant, he stops breathing.

Before him, the Wastes reach far beyond his line of sight, metallic relieves of the earth that shine splendidly through the crimson atmosphere.

There’s no way in hell that he will find Jongin.

But then, a noise resounds, echoes against the iron mountains of his surroundings.

Tao, startled, loses his footing.

So much for ability and stamina.

He tries to hold on to the pieces of debris that stick out, cuts his hands instead; he tries to move, he tries to stop it, hits his limbs instead; and then, his eyes fall on the cadaver of what probably was, decades ago, an exhaust system’s tailpipe.

He has the time to take in its rusted, curvy edge, before it pierces right through him, a spike through his abdomen, and amidst the sudden white-hot, unbelievable pain, the crushing realization that he is impaled on a piece of metal. 

He can’t breathe; he chokes on air, saliva; his scarf, he notices, didn’t follow him in his drop.

His thoughts are scattered all over the place, but his instinct kicks in, and before he really knows it, he’s trying to move, trying to roll away, something, anything.

It doesn’t work; the tailpipe, deeply engrained in him, doesn’t budge, and on the back of his tongue, he can now taste iron.

Shit.

The only thing he manages is to bring the entire piece with him, and it takes several minutes of struggle. Then, he, somehow, slides the rest of the way down, screams as his inside is teared through further.

When his eyes flutter open again, he’s on the hot, hard ground of the detritus valley.

The pounding of his heart in his ears is all too vivid, and when he peers down, blood is gushing out, spilling between his fingers however hard he tries to press down on the wound around the rusted metal.

It spills, following the rhythm of his cardiac muscle, and it makes for an uncanny vision of his pending death.

The liquid is warm on his skin, almost comfortingly so, but it smells acrid and of a very tangible death.

He’s not sure he wants to stay that way, but if he takes the piece out by himself, he risks bleeding his guts out even faster.

It hurts, so much.

The pain is horrible, to a point where his nerve endings are buzzing, becoming number the longer he empties himself. It’s not a good sign.

And then, amidst everything, he somehow picks up on noise again.

It’s the same as before, but clearer, nearer; some rustling, then a grunt.

Oh.

Tao can’t push words on his tongue and out of his mouth, so he shuts his eyes tightly.

At this point, fear is crawling beneath his skin and seeping into his bones – maybe through the hole in his body, he doesn’t know – for he doesn’t want to see what’s coming for him.

He has a bad feeling.

As if on cue, there is more rustling around, stronger grunts and breaths, to a point where it seems like whatever is nearby, is right beside him.

Something abnormally cold, damp brushes against his cheek, and Tao opens his eyes against his will.

Once more, he yells.

He yells until the vibration dies down in his larynx, and all that’s left coming out of him is a breathless gasp.

Jongin.

While he isn’t used to seeing the other with a white, sunken complexion and a dead, empty, covered with a cataract eye, it’s definitely him.

Relief floods his entire body, and makes him realize he doesn’t really feel anything anymore.

Maybe his brain couldn’t process the pain anymore.

But it’s okay, because Jongin is there – he found him, he’s oh so close –

But no. Dread settles in the pit of his stomach, and suddenly, he is freezing.

“Jongin?” He doesn’t know how he is still coherent enough to mutter the name. As he does, lukewarm blood pours out of his mouth. He is dying.

Above him, Jongin doesn’t react. He is observing Tao with a hollow, unblinking stare. The lack of expression on his normally lively features causes the wounded one to choke on a painful sob.

So that’s how it is.

He doesn’t know how he still has it in him to cry, but his eyes fill with water, snot leaking out of his nostrils after barely a few seconds of examining the younger and waiting for something, anything. 

But nothing comes, nothing changes; Jongin is starting at him with something quite like a feral interest in his pupils, and that’s enough to confirm Tao’s terrible suspicion.

It’s not the younger, not anymore.

He’s undead.

Not dead per se, but undead anyway; alive just enough to follow primary needs and feed on other living beings, but dead to the point of not feeling anything. Tao knows how it goes; he has heard the stories enough ever since he was a brat, a sensitive and easily scared one at that.

 _If there is a God_ , he thinks, _please kill me, now_.

There was never any point in returning to the camp without Jongin.

He hadn’t planned on dying, but his time has already been cut short due to the wound in the taut skin of his right hip anyway; and he prefers his soul to leave now rather than become like Jongin.

 _Oh_ , he realizes. _I don’t even have it in me to bring my arm up, and kill him._

He wails. He can’t even put Jongin’s soul at rest.

The clenching of his heart is worse than the tailpipe breaking through his skin; he gasps, coughs, and maroon droplets taint Jongin’s unmoving face. Why isn’t he moving?

He must be waiting for Tao to die. He must be waiting for the life to seep out of him just enough that he can take a huge chunk of warm flesh having to wrestle his prey.

Not that Tao believes he could put up much of a fight, anyway; he just hopes, at this point, that he can die before he’s eaten.

The trembling of his hands is almost impossible to control; but he forces himself, pushes himself to move, to extend his fingers until their tips brush the fresh material of his dagger.

There’s no point in trying to fight back and live, now. He might as well try to cut his own neck, or even his femoral artery since it would be closer; and so he moves, slowly, incredibly so as to not startle the undead one, his knife in a precarious grip.

The movement, though, catches Jongin’s still functional eye.

Tao freezes. The tip of his weapon is pressing against the top of his thigh, but is not nearly close enough to cut through where he needs it to. On top of that, he is reminded of the thick material of his pants that will definitely make it ten times harder to kill himself.

He can’t even begin to understand why he is still alive.

Sure, the tailpipe jutting out of his body isn’t inserted high enough to have touched his liver – but maybe his kidney? Hell, even just a part of his intestines?

Death is coming, but not nearly fast enough.

Above him, the undead blinks, for the first time since he appeared.

Or it? Should Tao call the undead, it?

He can’t bring himself to. If anything, it makes his sobbing even stronger. Oh, maybe that will help in bringing him closer to the dark edge; more blood is coming out. Internal bleeding. Right, it must be closer than he thinks it is.

He wills his eyes to focus on Jongin. Just one, last time. His voice sounds terrible when he speaks, barely a haunting whisper.

“I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t – I couldn’t save you.”

The creature boy tilts his head. He’s reacting, now?

“I loved you. And you know I did.”

There it is.

At least, his secret is out, alive and into the world. Certainly not for long, but it’s okay. He lived to hear it, he lived to say it.

Suddenly, he becomes dizzy. His shivers become worse, too, and maybe, maybe this is really the end.

Tao closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to think anymore, so it is just his luck that his thoughts are escaping him more and more.

He tried. He really did.

He was the stupid, overeager boy whom no one wanted to take care of, so he learned to mend for himself.

Jongin came along, one day, as lost as he was, and didn’t mind his way of being.

He didn’t care about his differences and his lack of restraints; he just. Accepted him. Or something. And that was how they became friends.

A pain suddenly sears through his neck. No need to say that it brings his contemplation to a sudden halt.

He forces his eyes open. Belatedly, he realizes that what he feels buried in the skin of his neck, are teeth.

Tao howls.

 

Death is cold, lonely, and nothing all at once.

An eternity goes by.

Tao doesn’t think, doesn’t really exist.

He knows he is _here_ , but not quite. He ceases to be, but is still tied to the world of living.

Still, it gives him the opportunity to rest for nothing happens before a long, long time.

 

He is gasping for air.

The sound of oxygen rushing into his airways is strangely harsh to his ears.

Tao whimpers, and when that, too, vibrate into his own head and down his hearing canal, the conclusion is clearer than it should be; he isn’t dead. 

One by one, his senses come back to him; the last being sight, and when it does, everything is blurry, a haze of which he can’t escape, no matter how many times he blinks.

He doesn’t really feel his body; but there is hunger, a deep, fiery hunger in the depths of his organs that can’t seem to be alleviated or ignored. It grows stronger by the minute, and before he knows it, the only thing that breaks his trance is the very real smell of familiarity.

Jongin.

He sits up; doesn’t even wince as he does so and takes in the dark, cold, concrete walls surrounding him. The ceiling is quite low, its surface webbed with moss-covered cracks, and the atmosphere is cool, quiet.

Quiet, save for his own gasps, and Jongin’s.

The other boy is sitting with his back against the opposite wall, no tonus in his limbs whatsoever. It reminds Tao that Jongin always had a slouch in his posture, and that no matter how many times he told him to take care of his back, the younger would always revert to it.

But he doesn’t understand. Isn’t he dead? Wasn’t he – oh, no.

He was bitten.

Quivering, he lifts a hand to his neck. It comes back smeared with black.

Rotten blood.

It doesn’t make sense. It simply doesn’t.

He looks down at his own estranged body; the tailpipe isn’t inside of him anymore, but it left a gaping hole.

There’s a hole, in his body.

He can’t be alive.

At this point, it’s simply beyond the bounds of possibility. 

He is dumb. Most of the time, he doesn’t reach the right conclusions when asked to make links between x and y.

However, he isn’t blind.

He can feel a cry bubbling up inside his chest, but when it reaches the barrier of his lips, nothing comes out but a sore breath.

In front of him, Jongin gets up with a grace akin to that of an old, wooden puppet, and kneels down beside him.

He can feel the panic boiling inside of him, and yet, he can’t _express it_.

He wants to weep, to make his emotional hurt known to the world; but it just won’t come out.

It’s stuck deep, deep inside of him, very much real and palpable, and yet – it’s as if his grief can’t reach the outer world anymore.

His eyes don’t feel with water, even as he settles on ignoring the other looking at him curiously beside him, and curls up into a ball.

It hurts so, so much. He dry heaves, buries his face into his hands, and finally, a ridiculous tiny whimper gets out.

Beside him, there’s some shuffling and then, out of nowhere, arms carefully encircle him.

At first, he protests, he fights; until he understands that it’s nothing more than an awkward embrace. From Jongin.

“Don’t cry, Tao.” Oh. He can speak? His voice is gruff, horribly so, but it’s really his. “It’s going to be okay.”

Tao doesn’t really believe him, but it comforts him nonetheless to feel the other’s bony limbs around him. In the end, the other is still there, still – alive, somehow, deep inside of his rotten envelop, and so is Tao.

“I was searching for you.”

His vocal chords don’t work, can’t produce a single sound; but he can still breathe out the words.

Jongin shifts, releases him a bit, and presses his cold cheek against his. Tao closes his eyes with a heart-wrenching sigh, revelling in the sensation.

At the very least, he can still feel. He doesn’t see well, and his senses are otherwise overwhelmed, but he can still _feel_. “I missed you.”

“I know.”

Jongin leans in, pressing his purple lips to Tao’s own; and Tao simply basks in the feeling of the other against him.

So he died, half-died – but at the very least, he found his only love.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! 
> 
> it was a bit new for me. 
> 
> comments, constructive criticisms, in short feedback and kudos are appreciated! thank you. it'd mean a lot to me.


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